Like most young artists, I started drawing with a heavy focus on anime. As time went on, I ditched the anime look and started dabbing heavily into realism.
Since Iíve been on a Monster Hunter kick lately, I decided to revisit my anime roots with a drawing of my wifeís character, Laele (Gobul X/switch axe user, what what!).
Having been away from anime for a while, this took me longer than it should have. :|
Done in Painter.

You are relying too little on what you learned from realism when drawing anime characters. Those are not two separate things. The real problem with starting artists is not that they are drawing anime, but that they are drawing wrong. The suggestion that they better draw realism is due to the fact that it is less abstract and thus progress and advice are more straightforward. There is no reason why you shouldn't use that knowledge in the anime style as well. Anime, when done well, is not lazy.

It is pretty much like translating from one language into another (or accent). You may watch the contrast and color choice. Her facial features should make the same sense as a realistic portrait. The image just feels that you are using tokens (admittedly it is ok to sometimes use said tokens, but that is a wholly different matter - they are also used to communicate a message, rather than just filling up space).

You are relying too little on what you learned from realism when drawing anime characters. Those are not two separate things. The real problem with starting artists is not that they are drawing anime, but that they are drawing wrong. The suggestion that they better draw realism is due to the fact that it is less abstract and thus progress and advice are more straightforward. There is no reason why you shouldn't use that knowledge in the anime style as well. Anime, when done well, is not lazy.

It is pretty much like translating from one language into another (or accent). You may watch the contrast and color choice. Her facial features should make the same sense as a realistic portrait. The image just feels that you are using tokens (admittedly it is ok to sometimes use said tokens, but that is a wholly different matter - they are also used to communicate a message, rather than just filling up space).

You're right, Lamb. I let myself get lazy on this one. My excuse was, "it's just anime."
I found that chain brush in a PS set, so I imported it to Painter (read: lazy, above.) I'm working on something else that won't allow me to be lazy, so stay tuned.